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03/26/2013

Andrew Koppelman, "More Intuition Than Argument"

Northwestern law prof Andy Koppelman reviews, in the new issue of Commonweal, the book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, by Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson, and Robert P. George. The book is the basis of an amicus curiae
brief that Robert George et al. have submitted to SCOTUS in the two
"gay marriage" cases being argued before SCOTUS this week. Andy's
review ends with this:

"That claim’s most fundamental difficulty is
the short distance from premise to conclusion. The union of the married
heterosexual couple is uniquely good because...well, because the union
of the married heterosexual couple is uniquely good. This raw intuition
comes decorated with a complex theoretical apparatus, but that apparatus
does no work. It’s like one of those old trick math problems, which at
first glance seems to require complex computations:

7 + 8,398.14 × B ÷ √55 - 8,398.14 × √55 ÷ B = ?

Look again, and it’s clear that all the complexity cancels itself out, and that you end up right back where you began.

The publication of What Is Marriage?
is a public service. It advances understanding of a perspective that
many (though fewer and fewer) Americans share, but it is unlikely to
persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree with its claims. It is a lucid
window into a disappearing worldview."